My friend Catlyn sent me an email message from her Blackberry. I didn’t recognize her email address and almost deleted it. The message was unsigned except for the signature line ”Sent from my Blackberry.”
I replied that I didn’t know who the message was from. But I guessed it might be Catlyn from what she said, and suggested that she should add her name to the signature. Seems simple enough. It’s a standard feature in every computer-based email client that I know.
She emailed right back that Blackberry didn’t have a setup/configuration that let her (1) add her name, or (2) remove the “sent from” comment. I don’t have a Blackberry, so I can’t verify that. But I will say that any device that doesn’t allow such a thing is flawed. More importantly, it causes a communications breakdown.
My new iPhone does allow customizing the signature, and it’s not hard to find. I changed to my standard email signature — name, cell/fax, email address. When people get email from me, they know who I am and how to communicate back.
Communicating means providing details that get the message across. To leave me guessing about the sender’s identity is not communicating — and I’m not criticizing Catlyn here. If RIM didn’t offer that level of customization on the Blackberry, that’s bad. If they did and she can’t find it, that’s worse because either the documentation didn’t communicate or the menus didn’t.
Now, in Catlyn’s case, since her Blackberry won’t do it for her, she’ll end up typing her name at the end of each message. That’s one detail she shouldn’t overlook. Someone else might not be able to guess who she is … if they don’t recognize xxx @ yyy . net, they might conceivable just delete the message. And if so, there’s been no communication.
